Myths & Quotes
Quotes relating to astrology by astrologers, mythologians, and others.
The She-Goat Amaltheia and a Myth of the Constellation Capricorn
Cronus (Saturn) married his sister Rhea, to whom the oak is sacred. But it was prophesied by Mother Earth, and by his dying father Uranus, that one of his own sons would dethrone him. Every year, therefore, he swallowed the children whom Rhea bore him: first Hestia, then Demeter (Ceres) and Hera (Juno), then Hades (Pluto), then Poseidon (Neptune).Rhea was enraged. She bore Zeus (Jupiter), her third son, at dead of night on Mount Lycaeum in Arcadia, where no creature casts a shadow and having bathed him in the River Neda, gave him to Mother Earth; by whom he was carried to Lyctos in Crete, and hidden in the cave of Dicte on the Aegean Hill. Mother Earth left him there to be nursed by the Ash-nymph Adrasteia and her sister Io, both daughters of Melisseus, and by the Goat-nymph Amaltheia. His food was honey, and he drank Amaltheia's milk, with Goat-Pan, his foster-brother. Zeus was grateful to these three nymphs for their kindness and, when he became Lord of the Universe, set Amaltheia's image among the stars, as Capricorn. He also borrowed one of her horns, which resembled a cow's, and gave it to the daughters of Melisseus; it became the famous Cornucopia, or horn of plenty, which is always filled with whatever food or drink its owner may desire.
The Castration of Uranus
Uranus fathered the Titans upon Mother Earth, after he had thrown his rebellious sons, the Cyclopes, into Tartarus, a gloomy place in the Underworld, which lies as far distant from the earth as the earth does from the sky; it would take a falling anvil nine days to reach its bottom. In revenge, Mother Earth persuaded the Titans to attack their father; and they did so, led by Cronus, the youngest of the seven, whom she armed with a flint sickle. They surprised Uranus as he slept, and it was with the flint sickle that the merciless Cronus castrated him, grasping his genitals with the left hand (which has ever since been the hand of ill-omen) and afterwards throwing them, and the sickle too, into the sea by Cape Drepanum. But drops of blood flowing from the wound fell upon Mother Earth, and she bore the Three Erinnyes, furies who avenge crimes of patricide and perjury - by name Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera. The nymphs of the ash-tree, called the Meliae, also sprang from that blood.
THE COFFEE BEAN THEORY OF GRADATION
Antero Alli’s book, Astrologik: The Oracular Art of Astrology, offers a unique analogy between the degrees of a sign and the strength of coffee. He calls it The Coffee Bean Theory of Gradation.
- 0-5 degrees of a sign: the green berry still growing on the stalk
- 6-10 degrees of a sign: harvested & roasted beans yield a cup of joe
- 11-15 degrees of a sign: darker roast of the stronger, richer coffees
- 16-20 degrees of a sign: pressurized distillation of various espressos
- 21-25 degrees of a sign: dense Turkish-style espresso essences
- 26-29 degrees of a sign: densest grind of the black residual espresso
The Ruler of the Sun in AstrologyEach sign relates to a particular set of mythic figures, and each sign also has a planetary ruler or presiding deity with its own set of stories. The planetary ruler of the Sun sign can give us insight into the god who engenders the hero, for this planet, even more than the ruler of the Ascendant itself, may describe the kinds of situations the hero will meet on his journey. But the Sun ruler is our presiding deity; and the hero and his prize are ultimately the same thing.
